Illumina Loses Bid to Dismiss Rakuten ‘Illuminox’ Trademark Suit

A federal judge in California denied Illumina Inc.’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit Rakuten Medical Inc. filed last August seeking to clear its Illuminox cancer-treatment platform of potential trademark infringement and dilution allegations.

Judge Lucy H. Koh, in an opinion issued Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said “it is a close question” whether Rakuten’s apprehension that Illumina would sue it is reasonable. Each piece of Rakuten’s evidence, on its own, is “likely insufficient to demonstrate” a substantial controversy, Koh wrote.

But taken together, Koh said, the “allegations are sufficient to establish a real ...